Scherzer suffers first loss in Tigers' loss to Rangers

Digital First MediaDETROIT — Max Scherzer had not failed the Tigers this year.

For the first time all season, they may have failed him.

His teammates scored just one run in the six innings while he was in Saturday’s game.

Without his normally proliferous run support, Scherzer failed at his second attempt to become the second pitcher in 44 years to win 14 games before his first loss, as the Tigers lost to the Rangers, 7-1.

Now 13-1 on the season, Scherzer will head to his first All-Star Game, where he’s still in the discussion to start.

Scherzer came in getting an American League-best 7.57 runs of support per nine innings. They’d scored three or more runs in all but one of his previous starts, and seven or more five times.

You knew the gravy train would end sometime.

His personal record, though, had been the thing garnering all the attention.

“It’s just one of the great things that happens in sports. Things happen. It’s a nice run. It’s great for you guys,” manager Jim Leyland said this week. “It’s great for fans, no matter who you’re a fan of. To be honest with you, obviously they were pulling against him in his last start, but there was some chattering in the stadium in Cleveland the other night, because he was pitching. I think he was kind of a billboard. That’s all good stuff. I think you can have some fun with that. If somebody that’s pitching against us is 13-0, you can say, ‘Well, we gotta grind it out tonight and try to give this guy his first loss.’ Without being rah-rah and all that. Everybody is talking about it. It’s nice. It’s great for baseball.”

That may be exactly what the Rangers did.

The undefeated streak may be over, but the streak of pitching well isn’t.

It was the first loss for Scherzer in a team-record 19 straight starts, dating back to Sept. 23, 2012. That was his only previous loss in his last 18 starts at home, dating back to June 17, 2012.

Scherzer would get nailed by a comebacker in the second inning that appeared to zip underneath his pitching arm, as he attempted to spin away from it, across his abdomen before striking the inside of his left forearm.

He’d go into the tunnel to the clubhouse with a trainer, but retake the mound at the start of the third inning.

Texas couldn’t push anything across until the fourth, when Nelson Cruz led off with a double, moved to third on a groundout and scored on a sacrifice fly by A.J. Pierzynski. A two-out walk to Elvis Andrus merely added another run, when it was followed by Mitch Moreland’s two-run homer into the visiting bullpen in left-center field.

Hernan Perez recorded his first big-league RBI with a single in the fourth, scoring Jhonny Peralta to make it 3-1.

The Rangers would get the run right back, though, as Leonis Martin walked, stole second and went to third on a throwing error, then trotted home on Pierzynski’s bloop single down the left-field line, making it 4-1.

Scherzer would get through the sixth inning, throwing a season-high 122 pitches, and extending his streak of consecutive starts with six or more strikeouts to 19.

Derek Holland would match him, pitch-for-pitch, though, and hand a 4-1 lead over to his bullpen, having struck out seven in seven innings. The biggest came when he fanned Victor Martinez — who was sporting a now-terminated 14-game hitting streak — with the bases loaded to end the third.

The Tigers bullpen would give up three add-on runs in the top of the ninth, thanks to a fluky fielder’s choice and a two-run home run by Adrian Beltre. It was served up by Al Alburquerque, who had not allowed a regular-season home run in the first 332 batters he faced in his career, but has now given up three in the span of 22 batters, one each in three of his last four outings.

Matthew B. Mowery covers the Tigers for Digital First Media. Read his “Out of Left Field” blog at opoutofleftfield.blogspot.com.